


Live and Let Live: How to Read Sherlock’s “Gay Jokes”

by notagarroter (redbuttonhole)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Meta, Other
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-24
Updated: 2017-05-24
Packaged: 2018-11-04 10:24:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10989009
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/redbuttonhole/pseuds/notagarroter
Summary: A musing on sexuality in Sherlock





	Live and Let Live: How to Read Sherlock’s “Gay Jokes”

I want to take a moment to talk about something that has made a lot of fans uncomfortable with Sherlock.

  


 

Over and over on the show, John is shown insisting that he isn't gay and/or isn't in a romantic relationship with Sherlock.  And when this motif comes up, it tends to feel like a gag or a joke.  But what exactly are these repeated protestations really telling us?  

When we refer to these bits as "gay jokes", it sounds like we mean "humor at the expense of gay people".  This kind of humor has been accepted and unremarked upon on TV shows for decades -- a character walks in with a limp wrist and a lisp, and the audience (or more likely, the laugh track) laughs, because gay people are (supposedly) inherently weird and funny.  

In my reading, that's not what's going on with Sherlock.  

* * *

 

From the very beginning, the writers have been at great pains to show that Sherlock's universe is utterly free of homophobia.  Not only are the heroes not homophobic, no one else is either.  John talks about his sister's ex-wife in the first episode and it is completely not a big deal.  Not only is he not grossed out or embarrassed about it, he also doesn't go looking for extra kudos for being "so okay" with it.  It is a non-issue.  And while Sherlock has failed to account for the possibility (but to be fair, Harry is not commonly a gender-ambiguous name), he isn't remotely shocked or weirded out or amused by the fact that John's sister was married to a woman.  It's presented as about as interesting as if he learned she had brown eyes.  

This happens again and again – non-hetero people pop up from time to time on the show, and it's never an issue.  Irene Adler, Kenny Prince, the innkeepers in THoB...  Sometimes they are good guys, sometimes bad, but there's nothing special or weird or inherently funny about their relationships.  It's just a fact of life.  

There *was* a moment when I thought the show was sinking to base stereotypes:

  


 

But the show twisted that around – if anything, Moriarty was teasing Sherlock for being so easily seduced by stereotypes, and thus missing the real truth of people's characters.  And John never bought into it at all.  

  


 

So... in that case, what does it mean that John is always protesting about how Not Gay he is?  

I really really don't think the point of this motif is that Being Gay is Gross and Icky.  Rather, I think there are a couple of things going on here that the writers are trying to show:

1) This is a world where homosexuality is *so* acceptable and normalized that it is the natural and most obvious assumption if you know two men live together/go on trips together/etc.  Of all the people who have casually assumed John and Sherlock are in a relationship, not one of them has acted like that's a bad, weird, or inherently funny thing.  If anything, the point is to show how totally acceptable and not a big deal it would be if John and Sherlock *were* in a relationship.

Of course this is a fantasy – this isn't how the world really is.  But I'd argue that it's an important fantasy, because Hollywood has spent years showing us queer people being defined by almost exclusively by oppression (or AIDS). As we move forward as a society, it's important to us all to fantasize about what a homophobia-free society might look like.

2) It's also character-revealing about John.  NOT that John is homophobic, which we see pretty clearly that he isn't – at least not in any major, virulent way.  What it suggests rather is that John maintains a simplistic (if common and conventional) understanding of how sexuality works.  For John, gay is something you are or you aren't – there's no in between. Oh, he might acknowledge the existence of bisexuals, but he'd probably say they are a special case and not relevant to his life.  For John, having a settled and well-defined identity is *important*.  He doesn't want to be mistaken for gay, not because he hates gay people (which he clearly doesn't), but because he views identity as an immutable and important aspect of who you are.  When people read him (incorrectly) as being in a romantic/sexual relationship with Sherlock Holmes, that bothers him because he feels misrecognized -- the same way some people might be upset by being misgendered.  And I don't think that's inherently a "wrong" or "bad" way for John to feel.  

What's crucial, though, is that the show does *not* present this as the *only* way to feel.  If anything, John's discomfort with being wrongly identified is played up on the show in order to provide a contrast with our other hero, Sherlock Holmes.  Sherlock obviously has a very different attitude from John – Sherlock is never upset or uncomfortable with any sexual identity thrust upon him by others.  He never denies that he's in a relationship with John.  He never denies that he is gay.  And he doesn't deny other assumptions either.  

  


 

I don't know if John in this scene seriously believes Sherlock is trying to pick up a woman (his reactions in HLV suggest he does not), or if he's just being jocular.  But either way, Sherlock doesn't deny it.  He doesn't even react to it.  

And in ASiP, when John asks him pretty directly about his sexuality,

  


 

Sherlock’s responses are not defensive, but coy and ambiguous.  

  


 

Sherlock is not the only character who demonstrates a more flexible understanding of sexuality than John.  We see it with Moriarty, who seduces Molly and Kitty Riley, and yet has no problem describing his relationship with Sherlock as "flirting".  We see it with Irene Adler, who describes herself as gay and yet has male clients, plus is clearly drawn in some way to Sherlock.  We even see it in Mrs Hudson, who clearly knows that John dates women (she helpfully brought up snacks during John's date with Sarah) and yet continues to believe that he is in love with Sherlock.  

If anything, I'd say the meta-message of the show is that high functioning people tend to have a flexible understanding of gender and sexuality, and avoid strict labels and definitions.  Whereas John, who is a bit more ordinary, more conventional, and probably hasn't given these issues much thought, is much more hung up on the idea that people might view him as the "wrong" sexuality.  

Furthermore, it's important to note that John's preoccupation with being correctly identified is shown to be a source of significant stress and anxiety in his life.  While I don't think John is meant to be evil or laughable for his more conventional ideas about sexuality, I *do* think we are meant to notice that John would be happier if he could just let it go -- if he could let people believe whatever the hell they want about him, and maybe even allow himself to remain open to options he thought were closed off.

  


 

 


End file.
